


A Gray Evergreen

by returntosaturn



Category: The Good Doctor (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Maybe - Freeform, idk - Freeform, lea character study?, lea in hershey, post islands part ii, thing?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2018-02-12
Packaged: 2019-03-17 12:28:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13658988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/returntosaturn/pseuds/returntosaturn
Summary: Sometimes follow-through was equally as valuable as making change.// Lea arrives in Pennsylvania.





	A Gray Evergreen

She knew it was the first hug that did it. About that, there was no contest.

When he first came to her door, apple still in hand, caught between two apologies.

Just a hug at first, then an apple that day he teased her about her sweater, and then a road trip. 

And now, all of a sudden, here she was. Thousands of miles away. In Donnie’s guest room, curled up in one of their grandmother’s quilts. The old house was silent and still, everybody else asleep while she was wide awake, fighting with emotions that had apparently decided now would be a great time to tap into her head.

She wished she could pinpoint exactly where everything became so complicated.

She’d arrived early this morning. The kids had bounced around like it was Christmas, hugging her waist and pulling at her bag, tugging her up the steps of the idyllic wrap-around porch. 

Donnie’s wife Lynn was already at the stove, cooking up a breakfast of pancakes, and eggs—just gathered from the coop outside—and bacon. After they ate, Donnie drove her into town and helped her rent out a small storage unit for her things until she could find an apartment.

“Stay here as long as you like,” Lynn had offered. “The kids love you.”

And it felt good. It felt right. Here where everything was familiar and quiet and quaint and calm.

Tomorrow they’d go up to the shop and she’d— _ finally _ —get her hands dirty, start working on a 1969 Chevelle that apparently needed a ton of TLC.

So why did something still feel off?

The remnants of the evening’s rain dripped from the limbs of the old oak outside, plunking onto the tin roof of the carport just outside her window. A steady, unchanging rhythm.She listened for a few moments. It’d been awhile since she’d heard sounds of nature...real nature...outside her door.

She shifted under the covers, pushed her arms out from under the blankets with a huff.

_ Pancakes. Of all things. _

She pressed her lips together tight and stared up into the popcorn-texture of the ceiling. 

_ No. No. No. She wasn’t a crier. She wouldn’t... _

He was ok. There wasn’t a doubt. She just had to remind herself of that. She had all the confidence in the world that he’d get on without her and be ok. He needed this.  _ She  _ needed this. 

She suspected it’d been a long time—maybe forever—since he’d been treated like a man, not a boy. And maybe that was what she was hung up on. 

He  _ would _ be ok, but did ‘ok’ mean anything would change?

Would they see it? Would Glassman see it or would he keep tethering him back, reeling him in with just enough freedom to keep him happy? Would there be pressure or would Shaun be able to see for himself that maybe asking for a little help sometimes was ok? That it didn’t mean he was lesser. That it didn’t have to be a forever thing, and could and should be on his terms, without bribes or broken promises. That ultimately, he could still be in control of his life without forfeiting the idea that someone else’s input—other than the pretty girl down the hall—might have some value?

She blinked up at the ceiling even as her throat grew tight. 

But what they would do was out of her control, and she couldn’t have stayed for him. There wasn’t anything healthy about that for either of them. If she thought that had been a good idea by any stretch of the imagination, she wouldn’t have driven forty hours cross country, plus three stays in shitty roadside motels to get here.

She meant what she said about needing help, if only just so he’d consider it later. But it was the rawest she’d ever seen him there on her living room floor, sorting her things and meticulously sheeting the bubble wrap when she would’ve been content to just make a game of Tetris out of seeing what fit where without employing categories.

_ How do I know if I stay? _

Sometimes things needed to be different. Like for her. She had known since the day she signed her lease in San Jose that something just wasn’t right. The job offer sounded so amazing and engaging and worthwhile from the telephone when they’d sold it to her a month after she graduated from Penn State. Leaving everything she’d known hadn’t even been that hard when a new life in a new city with new things to see sounded so exciting. And things were alright for awhile. But she never found her niche amongst her peers. She was eclectic and loud and her ideas sometimes felt a decade too late. And she never understood how just talking about the future and budgeting and planning and making nice and shaking hands would actually make it happen. Then Grandpa Rod had died, and that  _ tug  _ in her heart was affirmed. It was simplicity that mattered, not money or making the future. She just needed the right timing to make it happen. She’d held it in long enough.

But sometimes things needed to be the same for awhile too. So that people could learn what they wanted, who they were, become uncomfortable when change approached, and grow into it. Shaun needed that. People had to be willing to give him that.

Sometimes follow-through was equally as valuable as making change.

For all the fun they’d had on the trip, all the new things she’d gotten him to try, she’d realized things were a little worse off than she’d realized. Shaun needed the space to sort it out, and she needed the space to get that nagging, gnawing feeling to go away.

Maybe they both had that feeling, just in different ways.

She had to trust it would be better for him this time. She had to hope for it. For his sake. Because if she didn’t, she didn’t have much of anything right now except ten cardboard boxes and a duffle bag. 

She rolled on her side, hitching the covers up under her chin. 

He was probably awake now too. He was always awake. And if he wasn’t home, he was probably working. He was always going, it seemed. She hoped it was somewhere good.

She closed her eyes and burrowed deeper into the blankets. When she finally started to doze off, the dripping had stopped. She hoped when she woke up in the morning, she would find that wistful, wild scent of pine trees clinging fresh in the air.

**Author's Note:**

> [allscissorsallpaper](http://allscissorsallpaper.tumblr.com) on Tumblr.


End file.
